Targeted advertisement includes transmitting advertisements to users (also referred to as subscribers or viewers) according to end user parameters.
Video broadcasters (e.g. cable operators) wish to deliver different advertisements to different subscribers that may be watching the same program. Subscribers of cable operators receive the content by set-top-boxes (STB) that have radio frequency tuners that are configured to tune into the physical channel over which a desired program is being transmitted.
The broadcaster controls multiple physical channels, each having a limited bandwidth.
There is therefore a need to deliver the advertisements in an efficient manner while minimizing network bandwidth allocated for the transmission of advertisements.
There are various prior art method for providing targeted advertisements to a user.
One prior art method includes generating different programs that differ from each other only by the advertisements included in each program. For example, a certain television show can be included in multiple different programs that differ from each other only by the advertisements they include.
It is noted that in addition to the high bandwidth consumption of such a solution there may be another problem—if a user is tuned into a channel delivering a specific version for a first advertisement, he will get for other advertisements the versions that are delivered on the same channel without the ability to get other versions for them (since it will require to re-tune to other channels.
A second prior art method includes broadcasting advertisement over one or more dedicated channels and broadcasting programs over other channels. When an advertisement break starts a tuner of the set top box is instructed to tune to the advertisement channel and when the advertisement break ends the tuner is instructed to re-tune to the channel that conveys the program. This tuning is time consuming and can cause noticeable interruption in the video signal, due to the set top box inherent latency in the tuning process and the need to wait until an I-Frame is received.
A third prior art includes delivering different advertisements over a channel wherein each advertisement is associated with a unique identifier (such as a unique PID). This requires an inclusion of a large amount of advertisement information in the channel The physical channel that carries the multi-PID program could carry limited number of concurrent streams, and since each stream has high bitrate the delivery of several programs may require many physical channels.
A fourth prior art method includes uni-casting the programs to the subscribers. Each subscriber will receive a unique channel that includes a unique advertisement. This method is bandwidth consuming.